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Archive for the ‘Radio’ Category

SOUNDTRACK: FRANK BLACK-“Headache” (1994).

Frank Black is Black Francis from the Pixies.  When the Pixies disbanded, Black set out on  a solo career.  He’s got some great songs under the Frank Black moniker and this is one of them.

This is an acoustic guitar rocker, that sounds perfectly nineties.  It builds over a series of verses, getting louder and faster with backing vocals added as the song goes along.  What’s interesting is that there’s no real chorus to the song.  The verses are more or less the choruses, although that doesn’t quite seem right either.  But after the verses, there are these quieter interlude pieces that are kind of bridges but not really.

But regardless of all of that, the song is catchy as anything (especially for a song that includes the word cranium–incorrectly used–“My heart’s crammed in my cranium”).

Wow, i thought that Black Francis has been quiet all these years, and yet I see that he has been releasing an album a year for a decade.  Talk about under the radar.

[READ: Week of August 20, 2012] JR Week 9

Holy cow, this week starts off with a lot of fun chaos in the Grynzspan apartment.  And there’s a return of lots of characters, too!  The long story arc seems to return to whence it started–the “Bast apartment,” although there are many changes afoot there.  And, for those keeping score at home, we finally get to return to the original Bast House–where kids have sex and shit in pianos.

But first the poor delivery man is back with his gross flowers.  [Simon’s comments from last week have some great ideas about the plastic flowers, too, by the way].  But before that goes anywhere, Eigen shows up to the apartment–the first time he’s been here in a while.  And as he’s coming in the door, he is given a summons for Mr Grynzspan (whom the police assume he is).  Eigen tries to control the crowd and his temper, but he’s fighting with everyone.  In particular, he’s fighting with Rhoda, who has some great lines here.  When asked if she is Mr Bast: “Man look at these I mean do I look like Mister anybody?”  When Eigen says her name “was Rhoda right,” she says “What do you mean was,” and every time Eigen puts his hands near or on her, “I said I can dry there myself.”  Things settle down and Rhoda regales Tom with the story of the shipwreck they had last night, and she’s glad that Chairman Meow isn’t drownded (610).

Then Amy calls looking for jack.  She’s back from Geneva but needs a few days to straighten out things before seeing him.  Rhoda says that Emily is someone Jack doesn’t want to see   Eigen says she’s the only think holding him together.  They repeat the same statements about Gibbs’ book.  Rhoda says that Tom is this “big important novelist” but he can’t see that Gibbs hates his own book and feels pressure from Emily/Amy. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: THE BEAUTIFUL SOUTH-“Dumb” (1988).

About five years ago I mentioned all of The Beautiful South records in one post.  But I didn’t really talk about them all that much.

This comes from one of my favorite Beautiful South records–I like all the songs equally, but I often have this song in my head.  And the reason I picked it right now is because Paul Heaton sings about a bunch of things each one ending with “either you are simply beautiful or I am simply dumb.”

And these are: “It doesn’t take a mathematician to add a simple sum”; “It doesn’t take a labrador to show a blind man sun”; and this one: “It doesn’t take Robert The Bruce to see the web you’ve spun.”

I had no idea who Robert the Bruce was and I never bothered to look it up.  And yet, as you will see below in the post, Robert the Bruce is mentioned in JR!  I was flabbergasted.  And this song immediately popped into my head.

And that’s not a bad thing.  It’s a pretty piano ballad with a seemingly negative chorus (dumb, dumb, dumb) despite its positive message.  There’s also a beautiful ending: “The sun, the sky, the moon, the stars/Jupiter, Neptune and Mars/All these things I clearly see/It don’t take a telescope for you to love me.”  The songs ends with Jacqui Abbot’s lovely echo of this stanza.

The Beautiful South were a great band, they broke up a few years ago.  Paul Heaton has a number of solo albums out but they’re not available in the states, so…

[READ: Week of August 6, 2012] JR Week 8

This week’s read finds us primarily in the apartment.  We see bast return home and fool around with Rhoda before he goes off on his trip to the funeral.  We see Gibbs come in and try (in vain) to get work done.  We actually get to see Gibbs’ magnum opus (or parts of it), and we see him fall off the high that he felt with Emily.

There’s a lot of funny stuff in this week’s read.  It seems like the darker the story gets, the more childish jokes Gaddis throws in there.  Seeing Gibbs unable to work on his manuscript because of all of the (real and fake) distractions is simultaneously hilarious and spot on.  And also, the plotlines are really revving up now.  JR Corp is starting to see some pushback on their deals, and a number of outsiders are starting to get angry.  There’s bound to be a collapse of some sort soon.  I’m also starting to think that with all of the ellipses in the book that it will end with a dot dot dot.

As we resume, Davidoff and Bast are still talking.  Davidoff tells Bast “Don’t worry about” something [Thanks to Simon for pointing out this expression–I recognized that Davidoff always says “brush fires,” but not the don’t worry about it].  He is concerned that Bast’s hearing aid isn’t turned up (ha), but that the Boss [JR] wants Bast’s signature on any expenditures over $2,000 (It was originally $200, but Davidoff said Bast would get writer’s cramp).  He explains the title change in the magazine from Her to She–passive to active readership–will cost $14,000.  There’s also $27,000 for a new logo.  And the logos are awesomely cheesy–hard to believe they paid $27,000 for them.  They revolve around the dollar sign, with the least offensive one making a J and R out of the top and bottom of the S–the others have a snake, or breasts or thumbing your nose or even someone behind bars.  They pick the least offensive one that says Just Rite in a dollar sign (“something patriotic about the dollar sign”).  They’re going to put them on half a million matchbooks. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: TAME IMPALA-Innerspeaker (2010).

Tame Impala are from Australia, and their sound is majorly retro.  They remind me a lot of Dungen, including the fact that I would have guessed (from the way the words are sung) that English wasn’t their native language (which makes this already trippy album feel even more trippy).

Fuzzy guitars over a cool bassline introduce this album.  “It is Not meant to Be” is something of  statement about the sound of this album.  And when the vocals come in (fuzzier still), it’s retro all the way.  “Desire Be, Desire Go” continues the fuzzy guitar with a slightly faster pace.  The chorus comes in a little cleaner which is nice as it breaks up the fuzz somewhat (but only somewhat).  “Lucidity” ups the noise and pace with a great catchy riff and a strong chorus.  I think of this as the “hit” based solely on the fact that I heard it first, but when they played KEXP in studio sometime after the release of the album, they didn’t play this song .

They did play “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind” which is probably the real single–the cool reverbed riff and the soaring guitars sound great.  “Solitude is Bliss” has become my favorite song on the album lately.  The vocals remind me of early songs by The Who (maybe from Sell Out), but again, the music is all reverbed and hippie sounding, it’s a nice pairing and the chorus is once again, really catchy.  “Jeremy’s Storm” opens with a cool riff. It turns into a wild jam instrumental.  “The Bold Arrow of Time” sounds like a song from the 70s.  The guitar sound as it opens could come from Jesus Christ Superstar and when the riff finally kicks in, it could be a Cream song.  And yet the vocals (always soaring) don’t sound like anything from that time).

I love any song with a good bassline (especially one that’s not just repeating the guitar riff)–so I love the cool bassline that runs through “Runway, Houses, City, Clouds”–high and kind of obtrusive.  A perfect way to keep pace.  And when the bass gets a little “solo” at the end, it’ s a nice payoff.  The final song is “I Don’t Really Mind.”  It’s the most conventional and not dreamy sounding album on the album.  There’s even a break from the wall of guitar where we get just some drum beats–it’s very p0ppy.  It’s a good ending, upbeat and catchy and makes you want to start the whole shebang over again.

The album is a little long-feeling overall (it’s about 55 minutes), and some of it can be a little samey, but there’s enough diversity and great songwriting to make this album really enjoyable.

[READ: July 2012] At Home on the Range

Another frickin cookbook?  For a guy who doesn’t do cookbooks, there’s certainly a lot of cooking-based items on this blog.  Blame McSweeney’s who put out this book, too.

As everyone knows Elizabeth Gilbert wrote Eat, Pray, Love.  I’ve never read it (although I have read some of her earlier books (Pilgrims and Stern Men) which I liked quite a bit–I was into her before she was cool, man).  But this book is actually a cookbook that her great-grandmother wrote and had published in 1947.  Gilbert’s contribution is slim, but engaging.  She gives a lengthy biography of her Gima.  She was born rich (Main Line Philadelphia rich) and loved to travel.  Gilbert says that you can sum up Gima with a Jazz Age sensibility and one word: Enjoy!  By the time she was married (to an “impossible” man) much of their money was gone–indeed, she slipped out of a few foreclosed homes as the sheriff was coming for them.

Gilbert also points out how far ahead of her time Gima was.  The 1940s saw food moving towards prepackaging and processing.  So this cookbook came out right around frozen dinners to try to re-introduce women to the kitchen (although not in a retrograde way) and to be proud of what you can accomplish there.  But more than just a cookbook, Gima tried to introduce Americans to Brains with Black Butter, Eels, Tripe and Calves’ Head Cheese.  She was also unafraid to try things in different neighborhoods (the story of how she first encountered pizza is wonderful).  Gilbert wonders what might have become of her in a different time place or circumstances and it’s true for she was really a remarkable woman.

And the remarkable nature of this cookbook is not the recipes (which are remarkable and I would like to try some of the simpler ones), but the prosaic nature of the book.  Gima is telling a story with each recipe.  Indeed, the recipes aren’t even given in standard annotated form: they are written in the prose.   Gilbert’s other contribution is to take ten of their family’s favorite recipes from the book and write them out in conventional cooking style for ease of cooking.  I enjoyed this book a lot–Gima is a fascinating woman with a delightful taste for life.  The question is what to try first? (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: LATETIA SADLER–“There’s a Price to Pay for Freedom (And It Isn’t Security)” (2012).

What a treat to see Latetia Sadler as the song of the day from The Current (Minnesota Public Radio).  Latetia Sadler is the voice of Stereolab.  She has a new album coming out called Silencio and this is the first single.

It’s hard to say whether or not the song “sounds” like Stereolab, because Stereolab sounds different all the time.  But this is definitely not your bubbly Stereolab.

The song opens with some dreamy slow synths which morph into some dreamy guitars.   There’s no vocals for over a minute (which makes it seem like it might be an instrumental.  When Latetia’s voice comes in (backed by a deep male voice (very un-Stereolab) the music pulls back almost entirely and Latetia’s peculiarly inflected words [ree-uh-li-TEE] come to the fore.  It’s hard to believe that such a dreamy song would be about what the title suggests it’s about.  But how about this for a stinging (if oblique) final line: “Happy to identify with a reflection in merchandise.”

I prefer Stereolab’s bubblier music to their more dreamy, languid songs.  This one is nice, and because of her voice, it’s intriguing.  But I’d need a beat more oomph to want to get a whole record.

[READ: July 6, 2012] “An Abduction”

Tessa Hadley is rapidly turning into one of my favorite authors.  I only know her from reading New Yorker stories and I really must expand beyond these glossy pages.

This story was really fantastic.  I loved how the title has one meaning–the obvious meaning, which is even stated in the story–at the beginning, but by the end, the meaning changes to something else.

And what a great opening to a story: “June Allsop was abducted when she was fifteen, and nobody noticed.”  Shocking!  Then Hadley contextualizes this oversight: “This happened a long time ago, in Surrey, in the nineteen-sixties, when parents were more careless.”  Hmm.

So Jane was home from boarding school–her older brother was studying for college, her younger sister was not yet in boarding school and still had friends locally.  So, yes, Jane was bored.  She tried her best to have fun, but was really stumped.  When her father drove down the driveway past her and she accidentally hit his car with the ball from her Jokari set (paddle ball), the only fun she was having was destroyed.  Her father drove off in a huff.

Driving past him on the road was a two-seater convertible with the top down and three long-haired boys driving.  Her dad scowled at them, but paid them no mind.  Which is a shame as they are the abductors of young Jane. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: MEGAFAUN-Live from the World Cafe, November 9, 2011 (2011).

I loved the Megafaun song “Get Right,” a trippy 8 minute workout.  So I was interested to hear them in this live setting.  There’s a lengthy interview with WXPN’s Michaela Majoun (full of all kinds of details about Bon Iver–whom they used to play with before they broke up and he became Bon Iver–and about, North Carolina and Wisconsin and lutefisk).  And the band plays three songs, too.

“Real Slow” opens with a banjo (and it is real slow).  It has a very Grateful Dead feel to it and beautiful harmonies.  After the freak out of “Get Right” I was quite surprised to hear such a traditional folky song from them.  “Second Friend” is a but more upbeat–bright guitars and more beautiful harmonies.  It’s a simple song.  “State/Meant” has a bit more electric guitar, but it continues in the folkie vein.

I admit I didn’t enjoy this set as much as I expected.  The songs were really nice, but they didn’t really push any envelopes sonically, especially compared to “Get Right.”  But at the same time, what they do, they do very well.

You can hear it here.

[READ: April 23, 2012] “The Investigation”

This is an excerpt from a novel called The Investigation which is coming out in English (translated by John Cullen) in July.

I don’t know what the story is all about because this excerpt is really bizarre and wonderful, but it’s certainly not any indication of what the storyline will be.  However, it is a huge indication (I imagine) of what the story will be like.

The word “Kafkaesque” is thrown around a lot (well, in my house it is anyhow), but this excerpt is really and truly Kafkaesque.  The Investigator wakes up in a tiny hotel room to the sound of a telephone ringing.  He is naked and has no idea how he got there. And the telephone appears to be attached to the ceiling.  He has a confusing conversation on the phone that opens more questions about his situation. (more…)

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I used to not like Christmas songs very much.  Mostly because they;re unavoidable at the holidays but also because if you subject yourself to radio and mall versions, you get a really really bad selection of tunes.  The lowest common denominator of low denominators.

Sarah is a huge fan of Christmas music (even intentionally putting on Magic ninety-eight point threeeeeeeeee) during the holiday season (which may indeed be 50/50 when it comes to music and commercials and which tends to play quite a bit off my least-favorite song list, but they at least mix it up).  And, buying some of our own Christmas music (including alternate versions and new songs) has really helped get the monotony out of our mix.

This is a list that I created in 2008 and I see that it hasn’t really changed much at all.  There are some albums that we have recently acquired which I haven’t digested enough to see if they rank here or not.  But perhaps by the end of the holiday I’ll have a new post about new favorites.

Sarah’s comments are in red.  And, interestingly, she has created her own favorites list on her site.  Let’s see if anything has changed for her.

So, here’s my favorite Christmas songs circa 2008. (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: BOOKWORM-Jeffrey Eugenidies: The Marriage Plot (December 1, 2011) (2011).

Since “Just Kids” mentions  Eugenides’ book, and since Eugenides happened to appear on Bookworm at around the same time as I read this article, it seemed like a good pairing.

Obviously, from the title of the episode you can tell that this is all about Eugenides’ new book, The Marriage Plot.  Michael Silverblatt raves about this book like no other book I have heard (granted I haven’t listened to all that many episodes of Bookworm, but still).  In fact while listening to this episode, I put The Marriage Plot on hold at the library.  I always planned to read it but figured I’d just get around to it some day.  Now I feel more of a sense of urgency.

They talk at length about the state of marriage in the 21st century.  Not as in its decline but in how it differs so much from classic literature in which women had to get married by 21 or risk spinsterhood.  Eugenides set out to write a book about people getting married without having the trappings of classical literature.

It sounds wonderful.

The reason I mention this interview at all is because in the article below, Hughes talks about contemporaries of DFW using DFW as the basis for a character in their books.  So, in Franzen’s Freedom, there is character who is very much like DFW (I haven’t read Freedom yet so I can’t say). 

And in The Marriage Plot, there is a character who resembles DFW.  When I read the excerpt of this story in The New Yorker, I had to admit he did seem an awful lot like DFW–a tobacco chewing, bandanna wearing philosopher.  Eugenides had been mum about it for a while, but now, under the gentle nudging of Michael Silverblatt, he comes clean. 

He admits that there are some characteristics of DFW in the character.  However, he says that he didn’t know DFW all that well and the character has been kicking around since he went to college (long before he knew DFW).  Tobacco chewing was rampant at Brown in the 80s apparently.  But it’s a nice revelation and it ties in very well with the article.

You can listen to the show at KCRW.

[READ: December 7, 2011] “Just Kids

I have always grouped together certain authors in my head.  When there were a bunch of Jonathans publishing, I kind of lumped them together.  I think of Mark Leyner and Bret Easton Ellis in the same breath.  It’s fairly common, I suppose.  But I never really thought of David Foster Wallace in terms of a group of authors.  He seems so solitary that it’s funny to even think of him as having friends.   But according to Hughes, many of today’s established authors prove to have been a part of a kind of nebulous writer’s circle.  A kind of 1990’s update of Dorothy Parker’s vicious circle.  But more insecure.

The article bookends with Jeffrey Eugenides.  In 1983 he and Rick Moody drove to San Francisco with the intent of being writers.  Five years later with no written works, Eugenides moved to Brooklyn, alone.  In that same summer, Jonathan Franzen was in Queens, also feeling alone (even though he was married–unhappily) and desperate for friends and peers.  And then Franzen got a fan letter from David Foster Wallace (that’s after he had written Broom of the System, but before Girl with Curious Hair) praising The Twenty-Seventh City

Franzen and DFW became friends.  To this friendship was added William T. Vollman, and David Means, also Mary Karr (whom DFW dated) and Mark Costello (who co-wrote Signifying Rappers with DFW).  Later they would connect with Eugenides, Rick Moody and Donald Antrim.  (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: THE COLIN McENROE SHOW-The Life & Legacy Of David Foster Wallace (December 5, 2011) (2011).

This NPR show features an interesting discussion about David Foster Wallace:  his fan base, his cronies and his archive.   The guests were Donald Brown (New Haven Review), Evan Hughes, Ryan Walsh (who created the David Foster Wallace Audio Project) and Maria Bustillos.  Evan Hughes recently wrote a piece in New York that I’ll look at tomorrow and Maria Bustillos wrote the main piece for today’s post.  The other two guys I admit I don’t know.

This show looks at some interesting aspects of DFW’s life in the wake of his suicide and the release of The Pale King.  Although really the impetus seems to be Hughes’ article (which was published in Oct).  McEnroe asks him about the state of literature today and how both Jonathan Franzen and Jeffrey Eugenides have created characters that “resemble” DFW in some way.

They talk about the cult of DFW and play some audio clips.  Brown is an older reader and so does not embrace DFW as much as others.  He is of the same age as DFW and so loves the people DFW loved more than DFW himself.  I get the feeling that he is a curmudgeon.

But they can all agree that fans of DFW feel that he was their buddy.  Super-intelligent but very human, almost speaking like they would (if they were that smart).  They conclude that the Kenyon commencement speech is something of the pinnacle of his project of earnest warmth in humanity.

At the half way point, Maria Bustillos comes in to talk about going to the archive (which you can read about below).  She explains her own interest in self-help books and how DFW was a person who needed help.

The end of the episode has them talking about DFW’s voice.  They wonder why DFW has an “audio project” but other writers do not.  They talk about DFW’s voice and his presence during interviews and how he is very warm, even when he’s being cold (it’s an odd clip they choose). I’ve mentioned the Audio Project before.  It’s wonderful.

For anyone interested in reading books that are in a similar vein to Infinite Jest, Bustillos recommends Under the Volcano (Malcolm Lowry) and wholeheartedly recommends The Last Western (Thomas Klise).

A fascinating thing about this show was finding out that McEnroe was the author of a pretty funny piece in McSweeney’s many many years ago called “I Am Michiko Kakutani.”  He offers an anecdote about originally mentioning DFW in the story but that the McSweeney’s guys asked him to change it to someone else.

But I have to say that the show seems a bit too much about Colin McEnroe (the McSweeney’s anecdote was just one of many involving McEnroe).  He talks a lot about himself and about how he’s “afraid” that the Awl will make fun of him or that Franzen (who was with McEnroe in a green room backstage at some show) will put him in his next book (because he was discussing Neti Pots).  But I’m just not sure that Colin McEnroe rates enough to warrant the concern. 

It’s an enjoyable show, although unlike other interviews by people like Charlie Rose or Michael Silverblatt, McEnroe’s questions and comments aren’t very well informed.  If you know a lot about Wallace, this show is a bit frustrating because it takes a tone that Wallace is basically a “postmodern ironist” or that he sees everything as “a big dark joke.” And even when the guests are showing that that is not the case, he seems to try to keep reverting back to this trope.

Oh well, it led to some interesting articles at least.  Like the one below.

[READ: December 7, 2011] “Inside David Foster Wallace’s Private Self-Help Library”

For no reason in particular, I’m devoting this weekend to articles that are specifically or tangentially about David Foster Wallace (it’s been awhile, and I have yet to finish my Consider the Lobster project, so, why not). 

I actually read this because of the above radio show.  I know Maria Bustillos because we’re both in a newsgroup.  “Newsgroup” is so 90s, I wonder what they’re called these days).  Anyhow, Maria has always proven to be smart, funny and very articulate.  And the only reason I didn’t read this article when it came out was because I wasn’t sure I wanted to dive into this topic. 

After listening to the above radio show, however, I felt that this would be a very interesting article. And so it was.  It’s available at The Awl.

As it opens, Bustillos lets us know that she visited the DFW Archives Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and pored over all of the materials they have there (undergrad papers, drafts of fiction and non-fiction, syllabi, tests and quizzes, and juvenilia among other things). 

Wallace was a major note-taker.  And he loved to take notes in a book as he was reading.  Just look at some of these books

But what surprised Maria (and me) is that among Wallace’s collection of wonderful fiction was a collection fo self-help books which were equally annotated and marked up. 

Much of the set up of the article concerns why DFW had self-help books at all.  The answer is, of course, because he was a depressed person (obviously) and because he had been in rehab for a pretty long time.  None of this background information is new, but Maria offers insights into DFW and his life that I had never heard before (Maria and DFW had corresponded, although I don’t know if they were “friends” or not).  (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: BUBBOON’S TUNES-“The Cheese Song” (2002).

chheseThis song was picked as the number one song on Kids’ Corner for 6 years in a row.

It’s a strange song to have won the hearts of so many listeners.  It’s simple and pleasant enough with a humorous content (gouda, gouda gouda, the cheese that’s never rude-a).

And yes, it is very easy to sing along to (cheese, cheese, cheese, wonderful cheese).  And heck, I love a song about SPAM, so who am I to question this delicious foodstuff.  I’m just kind of baffled as to why this song is so very popular.

Having said that, I don’t want to make it seem that I don’t like the song (the gorgonzola bit is rather amusing).  It’s silly and catchy and fun and I can imagine 7-year-old boys around the world singing it together.   There’s just no accounting for #1 songs.  But it’s better than “I Will Always Love You.”

Hear for yourself at the cool Bubboon’s Tunes website.

[READ: December 1, 2011] Babymouse: Cupcake Tycoon

This may have been my favorite Babymouse yet.  Mostly because it’s all about the library.  But also because it seemed to be simply packed with ideas and jokes.

 It opens with dreams of Babymouse’s fancy estate where she is just about to be served….tater tots from the lunch line?  But soon, Babymouse is off to the library, where we get to meet Mrs Bee the librarian.  Babymouse loves books and she’s excited that she gets to search for a lost book, Indiana Jones style.
Most daydreams just embarrass Babymouse, but this one proves to be a disaster when Babymouse falls off a high shelf and grabs onto a pipe for safety.  The pipe breaks and sends water spilling through the library and into the school (and there’s very little a library hates more than water).
So to raise money to replace the books and fix the damage, the school is going to have a fund-raiser.  And not a lame fund-raiser like everybody does (no popcorn or wrapping paper here), they are going to sell cupcakes!  And even better, the kid who sells the most gets a grand prize! (more…)

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SOUNDTRACK: WILD FLAG-World Cafe, November 10, 2011 (2011).

I’ve been really enjoying Wild Flag’s debut album.  Wild Flag consists of Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney, Rebecca Cole, who I don’t know but who has been in a few different indie bands, and Mary Timony from Helium.

This World Cafe episode is a brief interview (mostly with Carrie, although all four women are present), in which they talk about the origins of the band and what it’s like to play as a foursome. 

There are three songs and the band sounds tight and perfect.  In fact they sound so perfect I almost wondered if they were really playing live (but there’s one keyboard flub that proves that humans are involved).

It’s a great sample of the record, which is all great, and it’s a good chance to get caught up with these rocking women. 

[READ: November 15, 2011] “The First Venom”

This is an excerpt from Marcus’ forthcoming novel, The Flame Alphabet.   I’ve read a number of Marcus’ things in the past and I realized that most of his McSweeney’s pieces I do not like.  Some of the short stories in the New Yorker I have enjoyed, although usually not right away.  So, clearly Marcus and I don’t see eye to eye on fiction.

And that’s the case with this excerpt.  It’s hard for me to say I wouldn’t read a longer piece based just on an excerpt because who knows what else the rest of the book contains (this could be a small fraction of a much different story), but this excerpt absolutely didn’t make me want to read any more.

In the excerpt, a married couple is sickened by their daughter.  Literally.  All of the words that she says and whispers and scribbles wash a sickness over her parents.  They cringe and try to get away but she keeps talking and talking.

At first this seemed like a metaphorical sickness–who hasn’t grown tired of their kid’s incessant chatter, but it soon becomes clear that this is very real. (more…)

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